Comments on: Who goes where http://www.joannejacobs.com/2006/12/who-goes-where/ Free-linking and thinking on education by Joanne Jacobs Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:08:24 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: allen http://www.joannejacobs.com/2006/12/who-goes-where/comment-page-1/#comment-34911 allen Wed, 06 Dec 2006 02:06:27 +0000 http://joannejacobs.com/2006/12/04/who-goes-where/#comment-34911 <b>Jeff Z wrote:</b> <i>why not sort students by which of their four “humours” are dominant or their astrological signs.</i> Because you couldn't pretend you were a part of the Civil Rights era by dividing kids up by their humours or their astrological sign. These days you have go looking for racism, and there are so many flavors to choose from if you're not too picky, since the easy, obvious kind is no longer around. No fire-hoses, attack dogs, night riders, no Klan or only the tattered remains of the Klan. If you want to find racism to combat you've got to look to people's subconscious minds wherein lurks racism people don't even know they're possessed of. There's institutional racism which is somehow different from individual racism. Perhaps something in the choice of letterhead or an ugly resistance to having your hiring policies dictated to you by people who take no responsibility for the repercussions of those policies. If neither of those will serve then there's the legacy of racism which, like some movie zombie, stumbles around the nation seemingly eating the brains of what, under other circumstances, would be relatively well-balanced individuals. The neat thing about the legacy of racism is that it doesn't require any actual racism and is an all-purpose excuse. Last, but certainly not finally, there's diversity to which any resistance is deemed racists since the the original excuse for affirmative action is starting to wear thin. All the really good under-dogs are gone so new under-dogs have to be manufactured. Jeff Z wrote:

why not sort students by which of their four “humours” are dominant or their astrological signs.

Because you couldn’t pretend you were a part of the Civil Rights era by dividing kids up by their humours or their astrological sign.

These days you have go looking for racism, and there are so many flavors to choose from if you’re not too picky, since the easy, obvious kind is no longer around. No fire-hoses, attack dogs, night riders, no Klan or only the tattered remains of the Klan. If you want to find racism to combat you’ve got to look to people’s subconscious minds wherein lurks racism people don’t even know they’re possessed of.

There’s institutional racism which is somehow different from individual racism. Perhaps something in the choice of letterhead or an ugly resistance to having your hiring policies dictated to you by people who take no responsibility for the repercussions of those policies.

If neither of those will serve then there’s the legacy of racism which, like some movie zombie, stumbles around the nation seemingly eating the brains of what, under other circumstances, would be relatively well-balanced individuals. The neat thing about the legacy of racism is that it doesn’t require any actual racism and is an all-purpose excuse.

Last, but certainly not finally, there’s diversity to which any resistance is deemed racists since the the original excuse for affirmative action is starting to wear thin.

All the really good under-dogs are gone so new under-dogs have to be manufactured.

]]> By: Jeff Z http://www.joannejacobs.com/2006/12/who-goes-where/comment-page-1/#comment-34893 Jeff Z Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:56:26 +0000 http://joannejacobs.com/2006/12/04/who-goes-where/#comment-34893 Actually, I don't think "the question is whether integrating school enrollments is so great a benefit that it overrides everything else," but rather whether race overrides every other aspect of a student's character. After all, it is not a "school" that benefits,but the individual students within that school. This does not mean we are still not suffering, of course, from the wretched effects of racist ideologies, but Louisville is perpetuating, not ameliorating the problem, with its kinder, gentler, up-to-date Jim Crow. Now, all students, regardless of race, can be discriminated against and dehumanized--it's a new era of equal inopportunity. Maybe we should update term to "Jason Crow" or, better yet, "Jennifer Crow" or "Jen Crow." "Race" is an obsolete pseudo-scientific criteria; why not sort students by which of their four "humours" are dominant or their astrological signs. Actually, I don’t think “the question is whether integrating school enrollments is so great a benefit that it overrides everything else,” but rather whether race overrides every other aspect of a student’s character. After all, it is not a “school” that benefits,but the individual students within that school.

This does not mean we are still not suffering, of course, from the wretched effects of racist ideologies, but Louisville is perpetuating, not ameliorating the problem, with its kinder, gentler, up-to-date Jim Crow. Now, all students, regardless of race, can be discriminated against and dehumanized–it’s a new era of equal inopportunity. Maybe we should update term to “Jason Crow” or, better yet, “Jennifer Crow” or “Jen Crow.”

“Race” is an obsolete pseudo-scientific criteria; why not sort students by which of their four “humours” are dominant or their astrological signs.

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